More in Common reposted this
Last week More in Common UK released a new report looking at Progressive Activists. Who are they? They're a group that make up about 8-10% of the British public and have the most liberal left leaning world view. Career wise they're particularly driven towards trying to deliver social justice and bring about change and so form the backbone of lots of campaigning organisations and public sector policy roles. They're also highly engaged and far more likely to post about politics and social issues online. So for lots of reasons have an outsized influence and import on public discourse and in civil society that is we wanted to look at them. Progressive Activists views on lots of economic questions aren't that dissimilar to the other segments, particularly those that favour more economic redistribution. But on social issues such as immigration, Britain's history, and national pride or the pace of delivering change on issues such as tackling climate change they tend to be outliers. Clearly there's nothing wrong with holding outlier views and those holding progressive outlier views have often driven a great social progress that makes society fairer. But the research also identified that some of the approaches Progressive Activists take towards those who don't share their views might be limiting their opportunity to build broad based coalitions. That includes a tendency to overestimate how many people share their progressive views to begin with; being sometimes less willing to work with those who have different starting points; occasionally adopting no discussion/debate policies that make it hard to reach new audiences; being more likely to criticise those who have a different point of view, or to attribute it to misinformation. The research also found sometimes the language used by progressive campaigners can inadvertently create us vs them dynamics in a way that isn't helpful for the issue at hand and some of the forms of protest Progressive Activists back can alienate the wider public and sometimes create difficult workplace dynamics. The report based on polling and focus group conversations with Progressive Activists as well as interviews with senior leaders in organisations that have large progressive workforces looks at their view and approaches, but also how progressive activists and those who manage might be able to best use their passion and energy to build broad-based campaigns. You can read the full report here: https://lnkd.in/eruH5qTw And a Guardian write up of the research here: https://lnkd.in/eTE2gnis We will also be hosting a webinar for those interested to learn more about the research next Thursday 6th March at 10:00, open to all, and you can sign up here: https://lnkd.in/enB6CGjg